Companies, like Home Depot and Lowes, have been growing their online sales significantly. What are you doing online now?
- If you have started marketing and selling online, are you okay with them?
- If you have not started, what is your plan for it?
We list below the most often used ways adopted by home renovation and improvement businesses to explore online opportunities. It may help you to know better about the pros and cons of each.
- Own a website or an app – Around 2/3 showrooms we visited told us that they had a website. Register a domain, hire someone to develop the website or app, update contents from time to time… All look like a piece of cake and you can proudly say you are online now. Behind them, you have to pay for the domain every 12 months, you have to pay website design and maintenance fee, you have to do marketing to get traffic to your website, and you might have to hire a team to do the work. Otherwise, just like 90%+ websites in this industry, only a very limited numbers visitors and most are not in your target area.
- Sell on ebay, amazon, and etc. – It’s good to share the high traffic on these major marketplaces. However, there are too noisy to get attentions. And they take a big bite from the sales. Usually the commission is more than 15% on the sales. And many hidden fees you are not aware of in advance. Limitations on product quantities and photos are strict.
- List on free classifieds – many store owners told us they use Kijiji. However, only a few said it worked because you had to upload and refresh your contents frequently to stay on the top of the category. It takes a lot of time and efforts but only a few views. At the same time, competitors who pay for a placement on the category usually steal away the clicks.
- Use paid advertising – you may have a good placement and display opportunity by adopting this. However, there is no guarantee on the return of your spending. And in most cases, large companies whose marketing budget is times of yours, will put you in a disadvantage in the competition.
- Post on social media – true that social media can help you communicate with many others. You can have a social media account in seconds. And then you can post contents or sell there. Alert here, CONTENTS. Yes, you need to generate attractive contents proactively to get followers. It takes your time and efforts. And if you have a chance to read your followers, pay attention to their demographics and engagement. You may find most of them are not your target, same as those visitors to your website.
These traditional ways are either costly or inefficient to reach target customers online. Then, is there any cost efficient solution?
Taking this challenge as our mission, we founded UWeX.co. Our IT and marketing expertise, plus our long term experiences with Lean Production System, makes UWeX.co a cost efficient solution to business owners. We help business owners to set up free online present and get them connected into UWeX network immediately. By working with us, business owners enjoy,
- Low Cost – free UWeX page, no hidden fees,
- “0” Risk – no impact on current operation
- Easy to Start – no additional IT work, no technology background required,
- Efficient Connection to customers –specialized in home improvement, effective traffic generation, target on customers in the GTA , optimized search & pair
Plus,
- Professional Support– informative industry reports, extensive service network & global connection
With more and more local businesses joining UWeX.co, together we are making this solution more cost efficient. The more we join together, the stronger we can help you to compete with large suppliers and grow your business online.